The present invention relates to the field of tape heads. More particularly, the present invention is related to magnetic tape data storage and tape recorders that include such heads.
To write and read at the high areal densities used by modern tape systems, the magnetic tape has to be in close proximity to the read/write elements on a tape read/write head. Research efforts are spent on finding a viable solution to reduce the distance between the tape and the head because reducing this spacing allows for an increase in the areal density.
When a tape is streamed over a surface an air bearing forms, which prevents the tape from coming into close contact with the head. As a result, minimal tape-head distances cannot reach the nanometer-range. A solution that was developed and that current tape heads typically use is to rely on skiving (i.e., sharp) edges to scrape off (skive off) the air. This forms a low pressure region directly after the skiving edge, such that the tape is pushed into intimate contact with the tape head due to the higher air pressure on the opposite side of the tape. An advantage of this solution is that the tape-head spacing is small and stable over a wide range of tape speeds. A disadvantage is that friction and wear arise due to the direct contact. To prevent excessive friction, the tape can be intentionally made rough (i.e. with sporadic bumps on the tape surface) so that only a fraction of the tape surface is in actual contact with the tape bearing surface of the head. Effectively, these bumps increase the tape-head spacing. Now, to increase the linear density, one can seek to reduce the tape-head spacing by using a smoother tape. However, using a smoother media results in an increased friction that can degrade the recording and read back performance of the tape drive. In extreme cases, friction can even cause the tape drive motors to stall and cause tape breakage.
In the related technical field of hard disk drives (HDDs), the magnetic medium is not in direct contact with the read/write head. There is an air bearing between the head and the disk. Because the disk is a rigid surface, the head can be pushed towards the disk to reduce the air bearing thickness such that the disk-head spacing is only a few nanometers. This can be compared with, typically, several tens of nanometers for tape media. The non-contact recording in an HDD virtually eliminates head wear, while operating at very small disk-head spacing.